STATE HOUSE ROUNDUP -- Caring and sharing costs

So, how many days a week do you suppose Gov. Charlie Baker wakes up and thinks, “GOD, I wish Hillary had won!”?

“Seven” may be a valid guess. Because an inconvenient truth has stalked Baker’s political life since the election of Donald Trump -- his job would have been enormously easier this year, and his job security greater, had Hillary Clinton been elected. That truth came into starker relief than ever last week.

Baker was getting ready to leave for Las Vegas to talk clean energy as news broke that his party's leader was hoping to demolish Obamacare by allowing the sale of low-cost, low benefit plans aimed at the young and healthy, and withholding subsidies for insurance copays to the poor at the state level.

But it was easy to anticipate Baker’s reaction -- walking through a well-worn script that boils down to the message: “Don’t Blame Me, I’m From Massachusetts.” And pretty much, the people of Massachusetts haven’t.

Guns. Gays. Coal. Immigration. Contraceptives. Climate change. On almost every eye-catching Trump maneuver this year, the governor’s instinct for pragmatism in rhetoric and decision making has seen him through. But now, the veteran number-cruncher and former health insurance executive faces more daunting budget and policy challenges, caused by Republicans.

The president signed a short executive order Oct. 12 fostering the creation of new bare-bones plans with low premiums, aimed at people whose health needs are few. He said the move addresses one of the main complaints about Obamacare -- not enough choice for consumers.

Then came the blockbuster -- the president announced he plans to end $9 billion in "cost-sharing reduction" subsidies that enable the functioning of Obamacare on the state level. The president pointed out that the payments were never funded by Congress, but rather paid through administrative accounts controlled by the executive.

U.S. House Republicans sued over the matter three years ago, arguing the administration has no right to fund a major program like this without Congressional appropriation. They won. Even so, officials from both parties had urged Trump to continue the payments, and Baker was out in front.

As with most everything except perhaps of the national Marine Monument off Cape Cod, the governor disagrees with his president on the dismantling of Obamacare. That frequent disavowal has made his most-potent political rival, state Attorney General Maura Healey, arguably his most-potent policy ally.

As she has done many a time this year, Healey said she’d go to court against the federal administration, aligned with Baker’s point of view, joining other state AGs in a lawsuit to block termination of the CSRs.

For his part, Baker issued a statement that “the Trump Administration is making the wrong decision to eliminate cost-sharing reductions for all 50 states, as it will destabilize insurance markets and jeopardize coverage for thousands of Massachusetts residents.”

Health coverage and its provision to the poor had already made the administration’s life complicated last week, as the Massachusetts Health Connector that administers public insurance for low-income residents tried to set rates for MassHealth for the coming year.

The Connector was expected to announce 2018 MassHealth rates early in the week, but delayed its announcement to make a last-second decision as to whether premiums should rise an average of 10.5 or 26.1 percent. The lower rate was announced as official Oct. 12, but it was contingent on ... continuance of the CSRs, which the president announced at 10 p.m. that evening would be ending. The Connector said it would explore "alternative pathways."

The flurry of health care developments came at the end of a short week that was long on news even before the grand finale.

All the Hillary Clintons in the world (LinkedIn lists 32, one in Russian) wouldn’t have exempted Baker from the issue that could yet be the undoing of his image as a master manager -- the performance of the MBTA.

Another sign the transit system is very far from being turned around came Oct. 12, when the Herald reported Federal Transit Administration data showing the MBTA suffered 338 commuter rail breakdowns last year -- far higher than systems with similar infrastructure that carry many more passengers many more miles. Baker’s team said plenty of other data can also be found showing progress is being made.

The shape of criminal justice reform is becoming clear, certainly on the Senate side, and a large contingent of Democratic senators held what amounted to a rally for their chamber’s version of the bill Oct. 12. Eighteen Democrats said the legislation their chamber plans to take up this month will change lives for the better, and while they didn’t put it quite this way, they clearly signaled they want to fight any version that doesn’t significantly reduce the use of minimum mandatory sentences.

The House, in the person of Speaker Robert DeLeo, has communicated its unwillingness to roll back mandatory minimums, but he and his team are still mulling their branch's approach, guided by former Supreme Judicial Court Justice Roderick Ireland. The issue is shaping up as a major point of contention between the House and Senate this session.

And just to make the week that much memorable, the reliably more-liberal Senate approved a bump stock ban more to the liking of the Gun Owners’ Action League than that passed by the House.

As the two branches passed deficiency bills for fiscal 2017, they included amendments outlawing a gun technology that allows semiautomatics from delivering rounds at the rate of automatics. Stephen Paddock, the Las Vegas mass murderer, used such a device. But the House banned all such firing-augmentation devices, whereas the Senate’s amendment specifically describes bump stocks and trigger cranks.

Amidst all the clamor came a low-key voice from the White House by way of Brighton. Trump’s chief of staff John Kelly took over White House press room podium Oct. 12, and caught some notice for a thoughtful, wry handling of the administration’s tormentors in the media and controversies such as The Wall.

Kelly’s ideology is a long way from Baker’s, but he and the governor have something in common besides Massachusetts roots. In their moderate, modulated approach to highly charged issues, they both come across as the anti-Trump. Baker’s not faking that style, but as a politician he’s obviously aware that in Massachusetts, anything anti-Trump is bound to go over well.